A re-investigation of the low Reynolds number uniform flow past a porous spherical shell

This work reinvestigates the flow field of a uniform flow past a porous spherical shell based on Song and Huang's (2000) theory of laminar poroelastic media flow with proper boundary conditions. The analytical solution of this study not only indicates viscous effects inside the porous spherical shell, but it also preserves the continuities of tangential velocity and shear stress at the interfaces. The result reveals that as the porosity approaches unity, the flow is entirely comprised of the incident stream; as the porosity approaches zero, the well-known Stokes' solution of a uniform flow past a sphere with low Reynolds number is obtained. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.